Bull. Kitakyushu Mus. Nat. Hist., 11: 87-90. March 30, 1992

A New Genus and Species of Carnivorous from the Lower Kwanmon Group, Northern Kyushu

Yoshihiko Okazaki

Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History, Kitakyushu, 805,Japan (Received November 10, 1991)

Abstract A large tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur is reported as the first record from the Lower Cretaceous Kwanmon Group, northern Kyushu, Japan. The characters of the tooth, such as fine serration, rugose longitudinal surface ornamentation and com pressed shape, are significant, and a new genus and species, Wakinosaurus satoi is proposed. The genus is allocated to the Family Megalosauridae tentatively.

Introduction On February 9 1990, Masahiro Sato, Kitakyushu Natural History Society, found a incomplete large tooth from a rock at Sengokukyo, Miyata-machi, Fukuoka Prefecture. The tooth has been cleaned up by the Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History. Its fine serration along the cutting edge and the triangular shape indicate that it belongs to a carnivorous dinosaur. In these ten years, several occurences of Japanese became to be known from Iwate, Fukushima, Gunma, Ishikawa,

text-figure 1 Locality of the Holotype of Wakinosaurus satoi m±mm$tWfr

Gifu, Fukui and Kumamoto Prefectures. Although there had been many expecta tions of dinosaur fossil from the Cretaceous Kwanmon Group, there were no reptilian remains except a few occurrences of turtles and crocodiles untill the present report.

The auther expresses his sincere thanks to Mr. Masahiro Sato for he kindly offerred specimens to study, and Mr. Naoki Kikuchi, Kitakyushu Natural History Society, who found reptilian fossils from the Sengokukyo area; Also, Dr. Yoshikazu Hasegawa, Yokohama National University, Dr. Dong Zhi-Ming, Institute of Verte brate Palaeontology and Paleoanthropology, Peking, and the persons of the Kita kyushu Museum ofNatural History, for their suggestions and encouragements during the study. Dr. Terufumi Ohno kindly helped to obtain older reports.

Systematic description Family Megalosauridae Huxley, 1869 Wakinosaurus satoi, n. gen. et n. sp. Holotype; an incomplete tooth. KMNH VP 000,016 Locality; from a rock of river floor at Sengokukyo, Miyata-machi, Kurate Gun, Fukuoka Prefecture Japan. (130°38'29"E, 33°4l'45*N) Horizon; Sengoku Formation, Wakino Subgroup, Kwanmon Group. Neocomian (). Discovery; by Mr. Masahiro Sato, on February 9, 1990. Occurrence; The specimen is collected from a rock, bluish or pale greenish gray, medium-grained sandstone to coarse shale with black mud patches. The rock includes abundant freshwater gastropod fossils, Brotiopsis spp. and many turtle carapace fragments, Adocus sp. (Okazaki, 1990a).

Description; A tooth lacking about half ofits apex: Lingual and buccal sides flattened, with many longitudinal striations. Striations irregular in their length, strength and interval, and ordinally intercalated but sometimes divaricated. Surface also with undulation. Basal zone with fewer striations. Anterior cutting edge with fine serrations, more than 100 serrations being observed throughout the edge of about 45 mm. Only about 5 mm of posterior cutting edge preserved with 12 serrations. Serrations being only near cutting edge, not sculptured on surface deeply.

Measurement

a; height as preserved 57.4 b; crown height 50.0 A new genus and species ofCarnivorous Dinosaur 89

c; height of posterior margin 31, c.a., d; width of broken end 27, c.a.

e; width of base 32.8 f; thickness at middle 8.5 g; thickness at base 10.4

Discussion The present specimen is apparently a tooth of a large carnivorous dinosaur. The significant features of the specimen are as follows: (1) Large, compressed blade-like shape of the crown. (2) Longitudinal striations on surface. (3) Fine serration of both cutting edges. These characters are seen only separatedly in several species. Most similar tooth, being reported is Prodeinodon kwangshiensis Hou, Yeh et Zhao from the Early Cretaceous of Kwangshi, China. The crown of the Chinese specimen is compressed, and the anterior edge bends obviously backward, but posterior edge is somewhat straight (Hou, et al., 1975) as seen in the Wakinosaurus satoi. But the surface of crown is smooth and sculpture of the serration is deeper in the Chinese

text-figure 2 Sketch of the Holotypeof Wakinosaurus satoi Buccal (left) and lingual (right) side and two sections. Positions of the section areindicated by shortlines. Scale 1cm. 90 Yoshihiko Okazaki specimen, and serration of the anterior edge in seen only in its upper one third so far as illustrated. The genus Prodeinodon is based on the Prodeinodon mongoliensis Osborn from Early Cretaceous of Mongolia. The holotype of P. mongoliensis is an incomplete tooth with characteristics as follows (Osborn, 1924): Crown with flattened sides, rounded anterior border, compressed posterior border terminating in a serrated ridge. The holotype has no serration in its anterior edge. In the paratype of P. mongoliensis, serration of the anterior edge observed only in its one third near top. In the Osborn's description, "flattened sides" means quadrate shape of the tooth section, and does not mean depressed thickness of the crown, as seen in the figured section. Therefore, the Wakinosaurus satoi and P. kwangshiensis are quite different from P. mongoliensis. It is possible that P. kwangshiensis belongs to the genus Wakinosaurus, but it must be discussed in future. The holotype of Wakinosaurus satoi occurred in a rock derived from the Sengoku Formation, which is distributed around the fossil locality. The sediment facies and fossils of the rock correspond to those of exposures around there.

Reference

Hou L.-H., Yeh H.-K. and Zhao X.-J. 1975. Fossil Reptiles from Fusui, Kwangshi. Vertebrata PalAsialica, 13(1): 24-33, pi. 1. (in Chinese with English summary) Okazaki, Y. 1990a. Cretaceous chelonian fossils from the Kwanmon Group. Abstr. 1990 Ann. Meeting, Palaeoni. Soc. Japan, p. 78. (in Japanese) Okazaki, Y. 1990b. A discovery of a dinosaur fossil from the Kwanmon Group. Abstr. 139th Regular Meeting, Palaeont. Soc. Japan, p. 37. (in Japanese) Osborn, H. F. 1924. and Theropodaof the Lower Cretaceous of Mongolia. Amer. Mus. Novitatus, 128: 1-7. Ota, Y. 1953. Geological study on the late Mesozoic System in Northern Kyushu. (1) On the Mesozoic System in Mt. Kasagi district (so-called Wakino district), Kurate-gun, Fukuoka Prefecture. Bull. Fukuoka Gakugei Univ., 2, 206-213. (inJapanese with English abstract) Sato, M. 1990. Long-awaited dinosaur fossil—Wakinosatoryu—. Watashitachino-Shizenshi, 34: 3- 5. (in Japanese) A New Genus and Species of Carnivorous Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Kwanmon Group, northern Kyushu

Yoshihiko Okazaki

Plate 1 Explanation of Plate 1

Wakinosaurus satoi, n. gen. et n. sp. Holotype: KMNH VP 000,016. Figs, la and lb: Buccal(la) and lingual(lb) view, natural size. Fig. 2 Close-up of the anterior cutting edge at the middle part. Scale indicates 1 mm. Okazaki, Y. A new genus and species of Carnivorous Dinosaur Plate 1

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